April 11, 2010

Face of 11-year-old victim of the Great Plague of Athens

On the top left you can see a forensic reconstruction of an 11-year old girl (nicknamed "Myrtis") who died during the Great Plague in 5th c. BC Athens. You can probably get a basic understanding of the Greek article in Ta Nea, via Google Translate.

It is explained in this part of the translated version, though the translation is terrible:

""This is a girl about 11 years and all we can say is that he had orthodontic problem: the coexistence baby teeth and permanent overcrowding created in the upper jaw and canines were outside the arc," says "new" by Assistant Professor of Orthodontics University of Athens Manolis Papagrigorakis, which is the soul of the interdisciplinary concept of rebuilding the blueberry facial, done by all players eager and presented yesterday at a ceremony at the New Acropolis Museum. "You can not talk about this feature which distinguishes it from a child of ilkias" he said."

"As for the colors we chose were based on those people at the time. To find the original would have to analyze the DNA of a process idaiteros kostovora."

As the above text implies, the hair color was inferred based on "people living at the time" (what people and based on which research?), not based on any hair sample or DNA test of the reconstructed girl.

It is strange: I had an overcrowded problem, with only one tooth, and I've reddish hair too, despite I'm italian and all my ascendent are from region Latium from many generation.It isn't a statistic of course, only a odd thing: reddish hairs = overcroweded teeth?P.S.I'm the one in my family to have the problem and there are others reddish hairs in it.

My grand-mother, of Scottish origin, had brilliant red hair, freckles, and an overbite.

My mother, of Scottish origin, had brilliant red hair, freckles and an overbite.

I did not get the red hair, but I got the overbite and many years of orthodontics.

I don't know why the authors chose red hair for this girl. However, you still see red haired people in Greece. The father of a friend of mine from the Peloponnese has red hair and freckles. Several people in the village of Liknades have auburn hair, no freckles.

I'm not sure about overbites. As anywhere else in Europe, most adults born with this trait today end up having it fixed by the time they are adult.

Yeah, I agree - as Western Europe R1b seems to have been largely populated from an ultimately Near East population, with one branch going through Continental Europe, probably via Greece, and another going along the Southern European coast or North Africa, possibly via Cyprus.

So sampling people then and comparing to other ancient populations would help tease out the routes

So sampling people then and comparing to other ancient populations would help tease out the routes

Yes. Using ancient DNA is the only feasible way for detecting and/or understanding an overwhelming majority of the mass migrations (including even the most recent ones) and even a little detailed migratory patterns.

Such descriptions should be read with caution, because very often when they talk about blond hair they are actually referring to any people who have lighter hair than the average dark brown-black hair, or when they talk about dark or black skins they are actually referring to people with tan-colored skin (as in the very well-known example of Colchians), or when they talk about blue eyes they are referring to people with dark blue or even hazel eyes.

It is very difficult to guess at how hair color has changed in Greece, and in Europe, for that matter, over the last several thousand years.

There are a lot of other things that would explain a shift in hair color before a conjecture about the vulnerability of red haired people to the plague.

Red hair is a recessive trait. It appears frequently only in populations that are quite inbred with respect to the red hair gene. That might explain the orthodontic problems, as well.

Without sunglasses, it is tough to be a red haired, blue eyed person in Southern Europe. It's a subtle, but obvious point. There's probably a very gradual selection process against blue eyes and fair skin in the South of Europe.

As far as fair hair in Greece is concerned, there is more hair color variability in Greece than a tourist, who tends to visit the Islands and Athens, would gain an impression of.

And there is certainly a lot of eye color variability, again, somewhat dependant on geography. (According to village or region of origin.)

That's my impression anyway. Frankly, it is something that has surprised me, having now spent some time there. It really has run against my childhood impression of who is Greek.

I think that we (North Americans and others) are used to a stereotype of what a Greek looks like. A Greek who doesn't fit this stereotype is not remarked upon as being Greek. We think they are German or Italian or "us" and we don't add them in to our Greek stereotype.

A bit off topic, but I interested in the opinion from Dienekes posters on these two pre-Islamic mummies from Yemen and there perfectly “almost oddly” round eye sockets. Is this typical for med. like populations? In comparison, the Cranium of the individual Greek female looks a bit more "archaic".

Old Blog Archive

Dienekes' Anthropology blog is dedicated to human population genetics, physical anthropology, archaeology, and history.

You are free to reuse any of the materials of this blog for non-commercial purposes, as long as you attribute them to Dienekes Pontikos and provide a link to either the individual blog entry or to Dienekes Anthropology Blog.

Feel free to send e-mail to Dienekes Pontikos, or follow @dienekesp on Twitter.